{"id":13481,"date":"2011-09-14T12:40:27","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T17:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=13481"},"modified":"2011-09-14T12:40:51","modified_gmt":"2011-09-14T17:40:51","slug":"art-arks-vitality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2011\/09\/14\/art-arks-vitality\/","title":{"rendered":"Art, Arks and Vitality"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Hope Wallace<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
The Ann Arbor Art Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can tell when a town has been blessed with sponsors who find that a community\u2019s culture and arts breath alive and imperative. I want to take some time and personally thank Citizens National Bank and Purmort Brothers Insurance in association with Central Mutual Insurance Company for their recent sponsorship of our 34th<\/sup> Annual Photography Exhibit. Without the support of our shared vision we could not be a vital link to community health and growth. Not only does their generosity help fund our existing programming, it also helps keep the spark and momentum of new ideas and expansion alive. Again, thank you!<\/p>\n

I recently spent some time in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and had the pleasure of touring the Ann Arbor Art Center. A double storefront with 3 floors of bustling activity and color! It is always rewarding and inspiring to see others at work keeping art alive in their community. Ann Arbor is a hub of this kind of energy with outdoor caf\u00e9s and music on the street. \u201cThe Ark\u201d, a not for profit theater has hosted notable stars for many years. Their tagline \u201cwhere music lives\u201d resonates a commitment to keeping music alive for the Ann Arbor area.<\/p>\n

We are fortunate to have a history as long and varied as \u201cThe Ark\u201d and continue to bring you eye candy art exhibits just as we have done for many years. On October 1 we will launch our 34th<\/sup> Annual Photography Exhibit with a public reception from 7\u20139 p.m. Awards will be given out at
\n8 p.m. This exhibit will run through October 28 and we look forward to seeing you there! As always exhibit admission is free.<\/p>\n

Art class registration continues with \u201cDrawing in Your Right Mind,\u201d already in progress on Tuesday evenings. Please check out our schedule or give us a call to find out to find out what class interests you! The line-up as it stands is: \u201cLandscape Oil Painting with Sally Geething,\u201d \u201cWatercolor and Mixed Media,\u201d \u201cDynamic Acrylic Painting,\u201d \u201cAnime\/Manga\u201d, \u201cBeginning Drawing,\u201d \u201cClaymation,\u201d \u201cMedieval Multimedia and Initial Line Art. Instructor Matt Temple has been working with the print making equipment and bringing it back to life, so stay tuned for more offerings soon!<\/p>\n

Contact the art center at 419.238.6837 or wassenberg@embarqmail.com<\/a> for further information or to register.\u00a0 Class size is limited, and preregistration is required.\u00a0 The Wassenberg Art Center is located at 643 S. Washington Street in Van Wert, Ohio.<\/p>\n

Annie Oakley became an international celebrity<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By Kay Sluterbeck<\/strong><\/p>\n

(After Annie Moses married marksman Frank Butler, they presented sharpshooting exhibitions around the country.\u00a0 After one such show, the Sioux chief Sitting Bull asked to meet Annie.\u00a0 Because she reminded him of his late daughter, he unofficially adopted her, giving her an Indian name meaning \u201cLittle Sure Shot.\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n

Sitting Bull\u2019s \u201cadoption\u201d of Annie set \u201cButler and Oakley\u201d apart from the many other shooting acts around the country, and Frank began looking for new places to demonstrate their skills.\u00a0 In 1884 he and Annie saw a new show, \u201cBuffalo Bill\u2019s Wild West,\u201d run by \u201cBuffalo Bill\u201d Cody, who had put together a lavish traveling show to give audiences a taste of the Wild West, which was becoming a vanishing part of history.<\/p>\n

The couple were turned down the first time they applied for a job with Cody because he already had a marksman, Colonel Adam Bogardus.\u00a0 When Bogardus quit in 1885, Frank decided to work in the background as Annie\u2019s manager, and they again approached Cody about a job.\u00a0 To prove that Annie could hold her own, Frank offered to have her perform a three-day trial run.\u00a0 Cody was skeptical.\u00a0 Annie weighed only about 110 pounds, and he didn\u2019t think she\u2019d be able to handle the 10-pound shotguns Bogardus had left behind.\u00a0 But he agreed to the tryout.<\/p>\n

Frank and Annie arrived for the show well ahead of time, so they decided to polish their act while they waited.\u00a0 Frank launched clay pigeons into the air, and Annie knocked them down in quick succession. \u00a0She hit them with the shotgun held right side up, upside down, in her left hand and in her right.\u00a0 When she stopped shooting, a man who had been watching came running up.\u00a0 \u201cWonderful!\u201d he yelled. \u201cDo you have photographs of yourself with your gun?\u201d \u00a0The man was Buffalo Bill\u2019s business partner, and he hired her on the spot.<\/p>\n

Annie and Frank traveled with Buffalo Bill\u2019s Wild West for the next 17 years.\u00a0 The show was as authentic as possible, with real cowboys riding bucking broncos and real Indians \u201cattached\u201d settlers.\u00a0 Real Pony Express riders galloped across the field.\u00a0 And then the \u201cadopted\u201d daughter of Chief Sitting Bull, \u201cLittle Sure Shot,\u201d took the stage.\u00a0 Her act included shooting clay pigeons, pulling the trap herself; shooting double from two traps sprung at the same time; throwing glass balls in the air and shot them before they hit the ground; shooting over her shoulder while looking in a mirror; and much more, including breaking five glass balls in five seconds not just once, but three times with different guns. \u00a0\u00a0Eventually Annie also added some exciting riding tricks to the act.<\/p>\n

Although she was skilled with all kinds of guns, including pistols and rifles, Annie mostly used shotguns in her Wild West performances.\u00a0 This was because the tiny pellets of the shotgun cartridges traveled only about 60 yards, making them much safer than rifle bullets, which could go as far as 1,000 yards.\u00a0 When she used a rifle, shops as far as eight blocks away complained of broken windows.<\/p>\n

In 1887 the Wild West show traveled to England for Queen Victoria\u2019s Golden Jubilee.\u00a0 The whole troupe appeared as part of the American Exhibition in London.\u00a0 Royalty from all over Europe came to see the show, and Annie was one of the biggest attractions.\u00a0 When the show packed up to move to Manchester, England, for the winter, Frank and Annie decided not to go.\u00a0 Annie was earning extra money giving shooting lessons and exhibitions at London gun clubs, and Frank thought it was time for her to break away.\u00a0 After traveling to Berlin to give a private show for Crown Prince Wilhelm, the couple returned to New York where Annie spent the winter challenging local marksmen to shooting matches \u2013 and winning.<\/p>\n

In 1889 they rejoined Buffalo Bill just in time to sail to Paris for a new European tour.\u00a0 By now, Annie\u2019s reputation had made her a celebrity, and she was on her way to becoming a legend.\u00a0 A penny-dreadful novel titled \u201cThe Rifle Queen\u201d \u2013 although pure fiction \u2013 made her a larger-than-life superhero.\u00a0 Her name was constantly before the public, and even people who had never seen her admired and cared about her.\u00a0 Once, while she took a vacation break in England, \u00a0a rumor that she had died of \u201ccongestion of the lungs\u201d in Argentina began in a French newspaper and spread quickly through the international press.\u00a0 Annie and Frank had to send telegrams to media all over the world assuring everyone that she was alive and well.<\/p>\n

(To be continued)<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n


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By Hope Wallace You can tell when a town has been blessed with sponsors who find that a community\u2019s culture and arts breath alive and imperative. I want to take some time and personally thank Citizens National Bank and Purmort Brothers Insurance in association with Central Mutual Insurance Company for their recent sponsorship of our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wassenberg"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-05 03:07:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}